Section 1

1. Perceptions are no imprints, we have said, are not to be
thought of as seal-impressions on soul or mind: accepting this
statement, there is one theory of memory which must be definitely
rejected.

Memory is not to be explained as the retaining of information in
virtue of the lingering of an impression which in fact was
never made;
the two things stand or fall together; either an impression is made
upon the mind and lingers when there is remembrance, or, denying the
impression, we cannot hold that memory is its lingering. Since we
reject equally the impression and the retention we are
obliged to seek
for another explanation of perception and memory, one excluding the
notions that the sensible object striking upon soul or mind makes a
mark upon it, and that the retention of this mark is memory.

If we study what occurs in the case of the most vivid form of
perception, we can transfer our results to the other cases, and so
solve our problem.

In any perception we attain by sight, the object is grasped
there where it lies in the direct line of vision; it is there that
we attack it; there, then, the perception is formed; the mind looks
outward; this is ample proof that it has taken and takes no inner
imprint, and does not see in virtue of some mark made upon it like
that of the ring on the wax; it need not look outward at all if,
even as it looked, it already held the image of the object, seeing by
virtue of an impression made upon itself. It includes with the
object the interval, for it tells at what distance the vision takes
place: how could it see as outlying an impression within itself,
separated by no interval from itself? Then, the point of magnitude:
how could the mind, on this hypothesis, define the external size of
the object or perceive that it has any- the magnitude of the sky,
for instance, whose stamped imprint would be too vast for it to
contain? And, most convincing of all, if to see is to accept
imprints of the objects of our vision, we can never see these
objects themselves; we see only vestiges they leave within us,
shadows: the things themselves would be very different from
our vision
of them. And, for a conclusive consideration, we cannot see if the
living object is in contact with the eye, we must look from a
certain distance; this must be more applicable to the mind;
supposing the mind to be stamped with an imprint of the object, it
could not grasp as an object of vision what is stamped upon itself.
For vision demands a duality, of seen and seeing: the seeing agent
must be distinct and act upon an impression outside it, not upon one
occupying the same point with it: sight can deal only with an object
not inset but outlying.